Method

Unroll the pastry and lay it on a lightly floured work surface. Slice off a strip across one end to leave a 23cm square of pastry. From the strip, cut out 15-30 star shapes (depending on whether you want 1 or 2 stars per slice). Thinly re-roll the pastry trimmings until it is all used up. Lay the pastry square on a baking sheet and scatter over the ground almonds. Carefully spread the mincemeat mixture over so that it comes right to the edge of the pastry (the mincemeat shouldn’t spread when baked). Lay the stars in lines across the mincemeat, slightly overlapping them if necessary to fit, so you can cut out 15 slices when baked. Brush the stars with egg to glaze, if you like.

Bake for 15 mins or until the pastry is golden. Leave to cool. Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar with 2 tsp lemon juice. Drizzle over the cool pastry and cut into 15 slices.

Comments (13)

I made this recipe several times last year and it's so delicious! Much better than traditional mince pies in my opinion. I plan to make it several times this Christmas as it goes down a treat with mulled wine (or at anytime!). Very simple to make as well. Yum!

I ended up having to make these 4 times last year as everyone loved them so much! My grandad had lost all sense of appetite & taste after an illness yet these have so much flavour that he loved them & wolfed them down! A massive hit in our household, so easy to make and will definately be making them again this year

hi i left out the cranberries as i cant have them as im on warfin medication and its not wise to have them but it was still very nice you could have recurrents they would be nice to i should think doshis

I made these for a Practice meeting and they went down very well. I used walnuts instead of pistachios as I had them in and orange zest in place of lemon. I will definately make them again, they looked really pretty.

Questions (2)

clootiedumplin18th Dec, 2013

Just taken the slices out of the oven. Although they look good, they don't seem to have risen much in the middle of the pastry, infact they look as if they are uncooked in the middle. I marked them out into 15 squares, and placed the filling in the centre of each square, so as to have individual slices already marked out......is this how they look uncooked? I had hoped they would look more like individual cakes with a puff pastry border all around. Maybe should have stuck to recipe??? Where did I go wrong????

Cutting the slices before you baked them shouldn’t have made too much difference. Perhaps your oven may not have been hot enough if the pastry was uncooked in the middle. You can check the temperature using an oven thermometer, or next time try baking them as one and cutting as we haven't tested the recipe using the method you tried.

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